The iPad 2,4 Review: 32nm Brings Better Battery Life
by Anand Lal Shimpi on May 4, 2012 12:50 AM ESTSignificant Battery Life Improvements
We'll start with the latest iteration of our WiFi web browsing test. With some additional logic to defeat overly aggressive browser caching, this test cycles through dozens of web pages, pausing on each one to simulate reading time before moving onto the next one. Display brightness is kept constant at 200 nits while the test runs. Results are reported in hours of battery life before the tablet dies.
Most web browsing tests end up being significantly display limited, as in the display dominates most of the power draw. That being the case, the fact that we see a 15.8% increase in battery life from the new 32nm HK+MG SoC alone is very significant. Apple is very conservative internally about revising battery life ratings so it's no surprise that we don't see a change in the specs on the iPad 2, especially considering that so many units out there on the market are still older iPad 2,1 models.
The increase in battery life here is almost certainly due to lower leakage at idle and better active power as well. This is a real improvement.
Things get even better when we stress the real power hog on the SoC: Imagination Technologies' PowerVR SGX 543MP2 GPU. Taking up more area on the die than the dual Cortex A9 cores, the 543MP2 is really stressed during 3D gaming. What better way to measure the impact of the new 32nm SoC on battery life than with one of the most stressful 3D games out for iOS today: Infinity Blade 2.
Here we're looping through the same scene until the battery dies, once again at normalized brightness.
The 3rd generation iPad obviously doesn't do as well as the iPad 2 here, as it not only has a more power hungry GPU but it's also rendering the scene at a higher resolution (and driving a higher resolution panel). What's most impressive however is just how much better the iPad 2,4 does here: a 29% increase in battery life over the original iPad 2,1.
Riptide GP, a less stressful title, shows us similar results:
Finally we have our brand new video playback test. Here we've got a copy of the last Harry Potter movie with the credits stripped out (1:58:00 running time), transcoded to a 720p High Profile H.264 video with a 4Mbps average bit rate, playing back in a loop until the battery dies.
The iPad 2 holds a 19% advantage over the 3rd generation iPad (once again for obvious reasons), however the iPad 2,4 absolutely dominates with an 18% increase in battery life. At 15.7 hours this is an insane amount of battery life from a single charge. Granted end users will see lower numbers if you watch at higher brightness settings (200 nits on our test panel was around 40% brightness), but the advantage from the new iPad should still remain just as significant.
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Takoru - Monday, May 14, 2012 - link
Sadly I didn't get my iPad 2,4.At least I was right: Any iPad 2 with the Serial number DM....... is the new iPad 2,4.
j_connell - Monday, May 14, 2012 - link
I purchased an iPad 2 at a Best Buy near Indianapolis tonight and specifically asked for an iPad2 with a serial number that started with DM. Most the iPads either started with DV or DR. This was a black iPad 2 made in China Part no. MC769LL/A. Ran Geekbench 2 and it confirmed iPad2,4 Thanks to everyone who put the info together to figure this out. It seems to be the real deal, or at least it worked this time!machugger - Wednesday, June 27, 2012 - link
Not ANY ipad2 w/"DM…" serial number! I checked out six [6] of them with the s/n beginning with "DM" and they were ALL 2, 1.Takoru posted that "Every iPad 2 16GB with a serial number starting with "DM", which is manufactured in April is the new iPad 2,4."
goober296 - Tuesday, May 15, 2012 - link
I purchased a 16 gig black ipad2 from microcenter mpls monday with a dm serial number. Using linpack free app it also was a 2.4 model. So i guess the dm theory is true.Mrmixor - Monday, May 21, 2012 - link
When it comes to navegating the net, this is THE BEST iPad on the market. I'm going to post my results on a couple other tests when I'm done. Real life usages of the iPad and their respective drains on the battery. So far, I'm very blown away.kokhor3 - Tuesday, May 22, 2012 - link
Im havin prob determining my replacement iPad 2 which i just received yesterday from Apple authorised service center in Malaysia.But i felt it to be heavier n the display color seems better.
Linpack determined it to b iPad 2,2 but battery life pro merely displayed it as iPad 2 3G.
Chipmunk website determined my iPad as produced in early May 2012.
nomadp - Tuesday, May 29, 2012 - link
Tried two iPad 2's at Apple Store Miami Beachboth have SN starting with "DM", both iPad 2,1
Thinking about swaping it at Target or BB or Walmart
kayakingnsf - Wednesday, May 30, 2012 - link
How do you tell on the 32gig version. Most people have said how to tell on the 16gig version. What would the right model number be for that one?Thanks...
Takoru - Thursday, May 31, 2012 - link
The 32GB version doesn't get the 32nm processor, it's just the 16GB WiFI version.I also bought an iPad 2 with the serial number "DM" today, and finally I got an iPad 2.4!!! :)
Very happy with it so far!
Cerro - Friday, June 8, 2012 - link
Went by the local Target store here in northern California. They only had two ipad 2s in stock. One white and one black. Both had the DM serial number. I bought the white one and took it home, and ran Linpack on it. And it turned out to be the 2,4. Out of the box the battery showed 84%, plugged the charger on it and brought it up to 99%. I then ran the pad for the next 7 hours, all over the web, plus all the setup stuff and email. When I finally went to bed the battery showed 68%. What great battery life!